The Regional Resource Governance in West Africa (ReGo) Programme, funded by German Development Cooperation and implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, strengthens the investigative skills of 34 local journalists in three countries to report on the impacts of the mining sector and contribute to a well-informed public debate. Reporting on the mining…
Advocates See a Big Year for Justice as Liberians face trial in U.S. and Europe over Civil War
MONROVIA – The year 2018 will go down as the biggest year yet for criminal accountability of war crimes and crimes committed in during the Liberian civil war (1989-2003). But advocates for a Liberian war crimes court say 2019 will be even busier, with two cases in the United States and four in Europe—one each…
Liberia: Witnesses Fear Testifying Before War Crimes Court without Security
SINJE, Capemount County – Alhaji Tucker was only 10 when the civil war started in Liberia, but he remembers clearly the day rebels fighting with ULIMO K brutally slaughtered his little brother and other family members here. Tucker has vowed to testify against the attackers known as “Senegalese” and “Bility” before a war crimes court…
Liberia: Residents of Speaker Chambers’ District Want Him to Agree to War Crimes Court Establishment
Pleebo, Maryland County – The 14-year civil war spared no part of Liberia. The county of Maryland suffered an especially heavy toll. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report recorded 3,934 victims here, the second highest after Sinoe (5,706). This story first appeared on FrontPageAfricaOnline as part of a collaboration for the West Africa Justice Reporting…
Liberia: Tecumsay Roberts and Music Icons Slain in War, to be Honored at Industry Awards
MONROVIA – The lyrics of ‘Coming Home’ and ‘Ma Susu’ – albums by the late Tecumsay Roberts – live on in the minds of many Liberians. An icon of the music scene when he was killed in 1990 at age 39, Roberts was bigger in Liberia than Michael Jackson. This story first appeared on FrontPageAfricaOnline…
Liberians Plagued by Mental Health Problems in Aftermath of War
Ganta, Nimba County – The heat of late morning sun here is overwhelming today. Dorbor Kullie- [name withheld to protect him from stigma] moves his chair by the side of a building to benefit from its shade. He uses his shirt to wipe his face but he continues to perspire profusely. Yet, he wears a…
Liberia: U.S. Judge Rules Lutheran Massacre Case Will Go Ahead
MONROVIA – An American court has ruled that Moses Thomas, the senior officer who allegedly ordered the Lutheran Church Massacre, will face trial in Philadelphia. A civil suit brought by the Center for Justice and Accountability on behalf of four anonymous survivors of the massacre alleges Thomas gave the command for the killings when he…
Samay Massacre Survivors Call for Justice Through a War Crime Court
SAMAY, Bong – As calls for the establishment of war and economic crimes court in Liberia intensify, victims and survivors of the infamous Samay Massacre have joined, demanding the prosecution of those who carried out the massacre here in 1994 that killed 28 people and destroyed 22 houses. This story first appeared on Bush Chicken as…
Liberia: “It Pains Me to See Children Playing over a Mass Grave” – Lutheran Massacre Survivors Angry at Treatment of Remains
Monrovia – It has been 28 years since the St. Peter’s Lutheran Church Massacre. Survivors, most of whom only escaped death through the sacrifice of loved ones, have yet to see justice. This story first appeared on FrontPageAfricaOnline as part of a collaboration for the West Africa Justice Reporting Project. Peterson Sonyah, 43, was only…
Liberians March the Streets of Monrovia In Demand for Justice against War and Economic Crimes
MONROVIA – “We are the victims; we cannot get tired!” “We want justice!” and “Yor leave us oh! Dah justice we want!” were among an estimated 4,000 Liberians who gathered early Monday morning to memorialize the deaths of 250,000 thousand people who died during the Liberian civil war. The march, through the streets of Monrovia,…
Liberia: UN, American Envoys Call for War Crimes Court at Milestone Justice Conference
Monrovia – Stephen Rapp, former United States Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice and Dr. Uchenna Emelonye, Country Representative of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights have both called for Liberia to set up a war crimes court to prosecute perpetrators of its civil war. This story first appeared on FrontPageAfrica as part of…
The Quest for War Crimes Court: Who are the International Players?
Monrovia – The call for a Liberian war and economic crimes court has reached new heights since President George Weah became head of state. Campaigners see the ex-football superstar as the best person to muster the political will for a court because he has no known connections to the war. This story first appeared on…
German Envoy Says Justice for Liberian War Victim Is Key
MONROVIA – Hubert Jäger, the German Ambassador to Liberia, joined the chorus of international community calling on Liberia to hold a war crimes court. This story first appeared on FrontPageAfricaOnline as part of a collaboration for the West Africa Justice Reporting Project. Speaking at the launch of the Alliance for Transitional Justice, a collaboration of…
Family Calls for Justice and Reparations over Maher Massacre
Morris Town, Bomi County – Watta Kanneh, 68, struggles to draw water from a creek next to towering palm trees, where she and other villagers make palm oil in two blackened drums sitting over huge fire hearths. Kanneh still suffers from wounds she received 16 years ago during the 2003 killings that became known as…
Liberia: War Crimes ‘Victim’ Advocates for Court Establishment
Monrovia – Since the recent increase in calls for the establishment of a war and economic crimes court, many victims of Liberia’s 14-year brutal civil war are speaking out about their painful ordeals at the hands of warring factions. They are also joining call and urging major state actors to push for the establishment of…
Call for Applications for the West Africa Justice Reporting Project
New Narratives, a non-governmental organization that has been driving improvement in Liberia’s media sector for 9 years, is excited to announce a major new reporting project in Liberia and Sierra Leone – The West Africa Justice Reporting Project. WAJRP is running from 2018-2020 and will feature training, mentoring and capacity building for Liberian journalists and…
Leslie Lumeh Court Illustrator
LESLIE LUMEH is New Narratives’ court artist. He traveled to Switzerland in December 2019 to illustrate the historic trial of Alieu Kosiah, the first Liberian tried for war crimes in the Liberian civil war and also illustrated the trial of Gibril Massaquoi, the Sierra Leonean former Revolutionary United Front commander, by a court from Finland….
Liberia: Quiet Pursuit of War Criminals Signals Hope Against Impunity
Monrovia – When jurors in a U.S. Federal Courthouse in the city of Brotherly Love found former Liberian rebel commander Mohammed Jabbateh, aka “Jungle Jabbah,” guilty of two counts of fraud and two counts of perjury for lying to U.S. government officials about his role as a combatant in the Liberian Civil War, last week, it…
NN Writes on our Role in the Ban on Female Genital Cutting
NN’s Mae Azango and Prue Clarke write on the role of good journalism in breaking the taboo around female genital cutting in Liberia that led to its eventual ban for the Columbia Journalism Review. PRESIDENT ELLEN JOHNSON SIRLEAF left office in January with a tremendous, if overdue, parting gift for the girls of Liberia….
New Narratives Reporters Profiled in Forbes Africa
“I like to talk to the common people, I don’t like politics.” Mae Azango sits on the edge of her bed in her old home that is wedged in a rocky enclave between the gray United States embassy and the modern apartments occupied by expatriate workers in Mamba Point, the poshest part of Monrovia, Liberia….
Moses Bailey NN Reporting Fellow, Alum
Moses Bailey started his journalism career in 2010 as a reporter at Radio Gbarnga. He continues to report for the station along with Bush Chicken and Local Voice. Moses has been a New Narratives fellow since 2017. In a project on the extractives sector Moses’s reporting forced the Bong County superintendent to admit he had…